<aside> <img src="/icons/pencil_blue.svg" alt="/icons/pencil_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Main Takeaways
CAD stands for Computer Aided Design and is a type of software that allows the creation of drawings and 3d models of designs, which is immensely useful to the design process. CAD uses the creation of dimensioned 2-d drawings, extended into 3d objects to represent complex geometries. It is also a very useful tool for representing all types of assemblies and allows a designer to relate the objects together as they might be in real life.
Although CAD is only taught as part of the MAE curriculum, it’s very useful for all engineers (and can even be spper useful for non engineers)!
NX is Seimens’ CAD software. Although Princeton’s curriculum teaches Creo, PRE decided to use NX for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s the industry standard and recruiters/future employers love seeing that PRE grads have NX experience. It’s also a very powerful software: the wavelinking feature (see more below) is very useful and makes NX fantastic for handling large, complex assemblies. However, since the software is very powerful, it also has a somewhat steep learning curve, and can seem hard to learn at first. See below for a collection of really great resources for learning, and always feel free to talk to any leads or chiefs about NX :)
If you are already (or now) familiar with NX, the only PRE specific point you need to learn is our wavelinking practices and workflow. Wavelinking is a way to reference other parts and assemblies in your current part without having to work in one large file. We use our parts spreadsheet and parts naming convention to shape our file structure, which allows for standardized wavelinking practices that are covered in videos later in this document. The purpose of these practices are to prevent circular links, keep our CAD clean and understandable, and make wavelinking slightly easier for newer members to learn and understand.
The best way to learn is through doing! If you have trouble getting on to the software, reach out to @Miyu Yamane, our tech lead. See the tutorials below (a combination of PRE made and externally made) to learn how to get started and some of the basic tips and tricks.